At the end of my first year, I wrote an opinion piece on a whim. “In Defense of the Western Canon”  was the culmination of my time in Directed Studies and my reflection on the value of studying Western history in a rapidly changing present. At the time, publishing an article was quite a bold thing for me to do. I had grown up shy, hesitant to share my thoughts even among the classmates I had known for years. Now, I was professing my opinion for all the world to see — or at least, the readership of the Yale Daily News. In publishing such a piece, I was consenting to any number of responses, from praise, to criticism, to outrage.

To my surprise, I received many positive responses from Yale students and alumni alike. One message led to the beginning of a relationship with one of my most important mentors at Yale. Writing for the News ended up being one of my most meaningful experiences in college. Through my column, I not only honed my writing, but I practiced the skill of expressing even my most unpopular opinions. Now, with my time at Yale coming to an end, I am all the more grateful for this lesson than nearly anything else. In an increasingly polarized world, it can feel harder than ever to deviate from the ideological mainstream. 

Freedom of speech has long been a hot-button issue on college campuses. For at least the past decade, the Right has heavily criticized academic institutions for fostering environments perceived as hostile to conservative views. More recently, the Left has invoked freedom of speech to defend campus protests opposing the war in Gaza. In the past year, responses to these protests, debates over institutional neutrality and the presidential administration’s actions against Yale’s peer institutions have all brought questions of free expression to the forefront of our shared discourse. There is broad agreement that free expression is essential to a liberal arts education, but there is little consensus on what it should look like. 

Regardless of what stances Yale takes, students will always be able to speak up, to agree or disagree with the institutions around them. We can help shape the intellectual climate of our campus ourselves, fostering diversity of thought from the ground up. Protest is one way to do so, but so is writing. The Yale Daily News offers undergraduates an opportunity typically reserved for professional journalists or public intellectuals. The chance to publish and be widely read should not be taken for granted, and I would urge all students to make use of this platform. 

But the spirit of opinion writing goes beyond publication. There are countless ways to embody the values of thoughtful, opinionated discourse. It begins with simply sharing your opinions, listening to those of others, and being willing to disagree. It means everything from contributing a hot take on Shakespeare in seminar to hearing out the person who, you discover, voted for the presidential candidate that you despised. It means listening to the person who supported last year’s encampments and the person who hated them. It means listening to them all the way through, before deciding whether their position is wrong, illogical, or morally reprehensible.

I’m not asking you to agree with everyone you meet or to stop becoming upset over beliefs you find indefensible. I’m asking you to talk, to write and to listen. The antidote to ideological conformity, on any side of the political spectrum, is to remain ever-critical, self-assured and radically empathetic in how we engage with ideas and each other. It is because opinion writing embodies all of these traits that I have so valued it. Over the years, I have touched on everything from the controversial, to the silly, to the sentimental. I have commented on October 7 and the presidential election, a cappella, my love of Christmas and reflections on entering my senior year.

Now, as I write my last piece as an undergrad, I feel certain it will not be my last ever — maybe not even my last in the News. Commencement is not the end — it is, literally and etymologically, a new beginning, the so-called start of our real adult lives. Any skills I have learned from writing for the News are ones that I take with me into my real adult career. With any luck, my column may even help me professionally — already, it has been a subject of discussion in various interviews during my time at Yale. 

But all of that is in the future, over the horizon that is my graduation ceremony. For now, I am simply grateful that I had the opportunity to write and to be read. I encourage faculty, students and alums alike to take advantage of these pages, of this platform that remains available to the entire Yale community. What a privilege it is to be a part of this intellectual world, now and forever. These are the conversations that can fill lifetimes.

ARIANE DE GENNARO is a senior in Branford College. Her column “For Country, For Yale” provides “pragmatic and sometimes provocative perspectives on relevant issues in Yale and American life.” Contact her at ariane.degennaro@yale.edu.